Silvio Calabi: Buick Regal AWD GS is a driver’s delight

Silvio CalabiMore Content Now

Tuesday

Sep 8, 2015 at 9:47 AMSep 8, 2015 at 9:47 AM

When I was a kid, Buick was still “the doctor’s car.” Then, after doctors switched to Mercedes-Benzes, for an entire generation Buick became the official car of the elderly. Today it’s a premium status symbol in Capitalist China. Have you ever heard of another car whose persona has shifted so radically? There’s more: By 2013, New Buick had seen the average age of its buyers — the ones in the U.S., anyway — drop from 64 years to 57, a shift of seismic significance in a market segment that’s aging like Dorian Gray’s portrait.Odd as all this sounds, Buick’s current status is entirely understandable to anyone who drives a new Regal, especially the GS variant, and especially the GS with all-wheel drive and the full goodie pack. For both 2015 and 2016, General Motors’ Buick PR team made a big deal of this fifth-generation Regal’s “enhanced connectivity,” but we’re much more impressed by the “platform” beneath the digital doohickery — that is, the car itself, which is derived from an Opel, which is part of GM of Germany. There is no trace of land yacht or old fogey in its behavior. Its handsome curves, more California than Europe, are completely contemporary. The same goes for its ride, dynamics, performance and fuel burn. The Regal GS has a modern 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder motor rated for 259 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque, which we may rev safely to 7,000 RPM. On paper we might quibble about the six-speed automatic transmission — why not eight speeds, why no shift paddles on the steering wheel? — but on the road we can’t find fault. Whether actuated by computer or manually via the stick, the box shifts smoothly and decisively. With AWD and premium gas, the GS can scoot to 60 mph in less than seven seconds and deliver around 27 highway mpg. For drivers who want even better efficiency there’s a “mild hybrid” Regal with stop-start and eAssist, a small electric motor mated to a 2.4-liter, 182HP regular-gas engine.Along with continuously variable, self-adjusting suspension dampers, the GS also has its own version of IDC, Buick’s Interactive Drive Control, which lets the driver toggle between Standard, Sport or GS (“Grand Sport”) operating modes and instrumentation. The differences in ride and handling are sharp, especially in GS, which is too stiff for anything except maybe the sort of speeds still legal only in parts of Germany and northern Australia. The GS’s all-wheel drive is an advanced Haldex system available only with the 2.0-liter turbo engine. Yes, it maximizes traction, but it also improves the car’s balance and cornering — especially without the extra mass of a six- or eight-cylinder engine in the nose.This car sits in an engineering sweet spot, well equipped with current and proven technology, but none of those sci-fi features that aren’t quite ready yet for prime time. The Regal can watch the road ahead, alongside and behind, and alert us when other vehicles are too close or when we wander out of our lane. It will also help us back into a tight parking spot, set the e-brake electrically and release it automatically, keep an eye on tire pressure, and entertain us with a Bose stereo and lots of digital magic, including satellite navigation and a built-in 4G wireless hotspot. The available Driver Confidence Packages #1 and #2 — very reasonably priced at about $1,000 each — also include adaptive cruise control that will bring the car to a full stop in thick traffic and then go again, and automatic braking if a frontal collision seems about to happen. But the Regal won’t try to steer itself yet, or drive off and look for a slot in a garage all by its lonesome.As further indication of Buick’s dead aim on a younger, more involved driver, the front-wheel-drive GS is even available with a six-speed manual transmission, and around 12 percent of buyers are actually going for it. No one has been asleep at the switch at Buick since the Great Recession, and there’s no better sign of it than this $44,000 Regal GS AWD. My elderly father would never have bought such a Buick, but my son might — in a few more years.

Silvio Calabi reviews the latest from Detroit, Munich, Yokohama, Gothenburg, Crewe, Seoul and wherever else interesting cars are born. Silvio is a member of the International Motor Press Association whose automotive reviews date back to the Reagan administration. He is the former publisher of Speedway Illustrated magazine and an author. Contact him at calabi.silvio@gmail.com.

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